Sunday, May 3, 2009

Traumatic Reading

Finding a book you love and then hating everything else you try by that author, or

Reading a completely disappointing book by an author that you love?

The latter has happened to me too many times to count. As I've mentioned before, I can hate just about anything if I'm in the right mood. It also seems like some authors have split personalities, so sometimes they write books just up my alley, and other times they write books that to me seem laaaaaaame.

Sherrilyn Kenyon is one of those writers to me. Actually, I can pretty much predict whether or not I'll like her latest book based on whether or not I liked the previous one: it seems to alternate fairly regularly. Since I'm used to it by now, I'm not really that upset when I don't like one of her books.

Then there are other authors that I usually just adore. When they publish something I dislike, I get really upset. For example, Sandy Hingston (who of course isn't writing anymore because she actually wrote books I liked) was one of my favorite writers. But she wrote this one book, The Lover's Charm, that I absolutely hated. So I wrote a scathing review of it on Amazon. Then, one time I met her and I was like, "I've loved every single book you've ever written, you're my favorite writer eva!" etc. etc.; and she said, "Wasn't there one book of mine you didn't like?" <----GASP! How did she know???

So that's another example of why one should think about censoring one's remarks when writing book reviews.

Anyway, I think being disappointed by an author you love is worse than finding a book I love by someone and hating all of their other stuff. You have more invested in an author you love--you get excited about their new release, you bump all the books in your TBR pile so you can read their new release next, etc. You go out of your way to read their books, so if the book is disappointing, it's more of a let-down.

I haven't had all that many authors write just one book that I liked, except perhaps Neil Gaiman. I loved Neverwhere, but when I went to read Stardust, I hated it. That was a bit of a let-down, I have to admit, especially since Stardust seemed like it would be right up my alley. I have to admit I haven't picked up a Neil Gaiman novel since; whereas I did continue to buy books by Sandy Hingston--and Sherrilyn Kenyon--after their books disappointed me. So maybe I'm actually wrong and finding a book I love, then hating everything else by that author, is more traumatic for me. I just block those instances out of my mind and try to move on.